IS attack killed 75 displaced Syrians

A car bombing by the Islamic State group killed at least 75 displaced people in eastern Syria, a monitor said yesterday, as the cornered extremists appeared to target fleeing civilians.

Saturday's attack in the eastern province of Deir Ezzor killed "at least 75 displaced civilians including children" and wounded 140, said Rami Abdel Rahman, head of the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights.

The scale of the attack showed that despite losing vast swathes of territory it held in Iraq and Syria, the group is still capable of mounting deadly attacks.

The displaced had fled battles in the province, where Syrian forces and the US-backed Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), are fighting the jihadist group in separate offensives.

Fighting across Deir Ezzor province has sent thousands of civilians fleeing for their lives, some straight into the desert. Syrian and allied forces converged Saturday on holdout IS fighters in the border town of Albu Kamal, the jihadists' very last urban bastion after Russian-backed regime forces seized Deir Ezzor city on Friday.

The jihadists, who in 2014 declared a "caliphate" spanning territory in Iraq and Syria roughly the size of Britain, have also lost most of the territory they once controlled in neighbouring Iraq, including second city Mosul.

On Friday, Iraqi forces retook the border town of Al-Qaim, also on the Euphrates river.